


out of the long black night

by MissAtomicBomb (mrs_nerimon)



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, post-season 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 08:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18735409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_nerimon/pseuds/MissAtomicBomb
Summary: Gendry has a surprising visitor at Storm's End.Spoilers for 8x04, set post-s8.





	out of the long black night

**Author's Note:**

> just gonna get in here with this before d&d inevitably refuse to give me anything close to it

“Lord Baratheon.”

He forgets, sometimes, to answer to that. He’s told them to call him Gendry, but aside from Davos, none of the household does. Little Ray his new squire has the most trouble with it; the boy must be no more than nine, and insists on stumbling his way through _Baratheon_ every time.

“You have a visitor, m’lord.”

Gendry glances across the table at Davos, but the old man merely shrugs. He doesn’t think they had any more meetings planned for today; he’s spent much of the past two moons greeting the lords of the stormlands, touring the area, trying to familiarize himself with all the things he needs to know now. He hasn’t a clue how to be a lord, but one thing he does know is how a lord can impact the lives of his people. He wants to be a good man, to care for the families he’s met recently. To ensure the children who play along the beaches and run through the woods here never know the horrors he saw at their age.

Davos stands, abandoning the story book Gendry had been ever so slowly working his way through.

“We’ll be right there,” he nods at the boy, who offers them each a fast bow, and flees from the room with quick steps.

As they pass through the halls, under the fresh black and yellow banners he watched the housemaids hang just the other day, Gendry briefly wonders if it’s King Jon. He’s heard, along with every other person in the seven kingdoms, that the Dragon Queen went mad with power and grief, and Jon had to drive his sword through her belly. He knows that Jon is not Jon at all, but Aegon Targaryen; now the king he was always meant to be. He knows he will swear Jon his service from now until the end of his days.

Maybe, this was his role all along. He was always supposed to serve the Starks, he thinks.

The hall is mostly empty, save for a few guards standing at the entrance, eyeing the newcomer with wide eyes. Gendry follows their gaze, and freezes in his tracks.

She’s standing in front of the wide window, gazing out at Shipbreaker Bay. Her hair is longer now, pulled back into a plait that just brushes her shoulder. He can see the handle of the knife still strapped to her waist, Needle hanging, as always, off her right hip.

His heart aches palpably. She’s here, in his new home, leagues from Winterfell and King’s Landing and worlds away from Braavos. She could be anywhere in the world, but she’s _here_.

“Not a bad place to live,” Arya turns away from the open window, a wry little smile on her face. “If it wasn’t so hot.”

Gendry can feel the grin split his face, so hard it makes his cheeks ache. He wants to hug her, kiss her, feel her in his arms again, but he feels his feet stuck to the floor as if with weights.

Arya seems to have no such problem, sauntering towards him with confident, easy steps.

“My lord,” she greets him seriously, but the quirk of her lips gives away her joke.

“Lady Stark,” he returns, and she lets out a laugh.

“My sister is Lady Stark,” Arya comes to a stop just in front of him, folding her hands behind her back. Ever the soldier. “You still have a lot to learn.”

She’s right, as always.

“Who’s teaching you?” She quirks an eyebrow up at him. It feels like a test, somehow, and he wonders why.

“Davos came with me,” he gestures over his shoulder, to where he's sure the man is still lurking in the doorway. Gendry can feel his eyes on both of them, probably wondering what kind of a lovesick, stupid child he’s been left with.

“Not your lady?”

He almost laughs, shaking his head quickly. _His lady?_ Arya is one of the smartest people he’s ever met, he can’t believe she’d be so foolish as to think there could be anyone else he’d want to be with.

“No. No lady,” he manages through a chuckle, and her eyes narrow. She thinks he’s laughing at her, he realizes, so he tries his best to suppress the giggles.

“You wanted to be married,” she states matter-of-factly, and Gendry nearly balks.

“I-I wanted to marry _you_.” He thought that would have been obvious; it wasn’t marriage, it wasn’t having a wife. It was Arya. It would only ever be Arya.

She bites at her lip, and for a moment, she looks like the little girl who used to call him stupid and ask him to fight with sticks in the mud.

“I wanted to say yes,” she whispers the words so quick they’re almost swept away on the strong breeze blowing in, about to stir up a storm outside.

His heart seems to nearly stop beating in an instant.

“I wanted- I want to be with you.” She inches closer, until the toe of her boot bumps his. "Now, more than ever."

Gendry recognizes a thousand thoughts burning in his brain at once, and he can’t decide which one he wants to give a voice to.

“You’ll be a good lord. I know it.” Arya looks up at him with the softest eyes he’s ever seen, gentle and caring and full of so much love, he doesn’t know if she’s even aware of it. How much she’s capable of.

“I’m not a good lady,” she says, and he wants to laugh again.

“I don’t care.”

“I won’t just rule your castle and give you sons and-“

“Arya, I don’t care,” he takes her hands, so small and delicate and deadly. “I know who you are. I mean- not all of it. I don’t-“ he drops off for a moment, thinking of the lines etched into her side, the secrets she may never tell him. She doesn’t have to, he thinks. “But I know you’re not a lady like that. And I wouldn’t want you to be.”

She laces her fingers through his, squeezing tightly.

“I have been,” she swallows thickly, and he can tell it’s a struggle for her to get the words out, like she’s confessing something. “I’ve been someone else for so long.”

He’s not sure what she means by that. When she was Arry, and Weasel, and Nan? When she was getting those scars? When she fought for her family, when she saved the world?

“I want to be Arya Stark again.”

“You can,” he promises immediately, wanting to give her the smallest reassurance he can. “You don’t- you don’t have to change your name, even. I don’t care. And we can change the banners too, if you want. We can put a wolf on them. Or- I’m not attached to any particular kind of animal.”

She’s the one who laughs this time, a beautiful, musical sound that sends tingles down his spine. The loveliest noise in all seven kingdoms.

“We can talk about that later, maybe.”

 _Later_. She wants to stay with him.

“Arya, I-“ he wants to word this perfectly, to make sure she knows just how important this moment is to him. Just how precious she is. “I don’t care if you never sew clothes or plan feasts or have babies. You can train the guards here or- or live in the forest, or- anything, really. I want you to be happy. And I just want to be with you when you are.”

Her mouth is burning hot and her arms are soft as feathers as they wrap around his neck, pressing her body as close to him as possible. He instantly forgets the guards and Davos and his new servants behind them and wants to lift her up and spin her around, to make her feel the same joy he does deep, deep inside his chest, but he barely gathers his bearings enough to kiss her back before she’s pulling away.

“You make me feel like Arya Stark,” she mutters in a low voice, and the words lift his soul up to the Gods themselves. He doesn’t know what else to say, so he only nods at her like an idiot, face split in a grin and nodding over and over.

Arya rolls her eyes. “Stupid,” she mumbles with a smile, and it sounds like a pet name falling from her lips.

“Yes, m’lady,” he agrees.

This time she laughs so hard she has to bury her head in his chest, small frame resting so perfectly against him. Gendry thinks of being six and ten, and the scrawny little girl who wanted to be his family. He thinks he knew, even then, that she already was. Always had been.


End file.
